Vevo To Shut Down Site, Giving In To YouTube Empire (rollingstone.com) 92
Vevo, the video-hosting service founded in 2009 as a joint venture between the big three record companies, is shutting down. The company announced in a blog post Thursday that it is shuttering its mobile apps and website, and that "going forward, Vevo will remain focused on engaging the biggest audiences and pursuing growth opportunities." Vevo is almost entirely succumbing to YouTube. Rolling Stone reports: The major record labels set up Vevo -- an abbreviation for "video evolution" -- in 2009 as a designated streaming service for music videos that would ideally bring in greater revenue from more high-end advertisers. Via a distribution deal with YouTube, it received a cut of revenue from putting its music videos on the Google-owned site. But YouTube's might has grown: The video-streaming service recently took Vevo's branding off its music videos, while also securing permission under a new licensing deal to sell Vevo's clips directly to advertisers, cutting out the smaller company's sales force. Though Vevo has been trying to peel away from its dependence on YouTube by touting its own suite of apps and offerings for years, it seems those efforts haven't been met with much success. "Our catalog of premium music videos and original content will continue to reach a growing audience on YouTube and we are exploring ways to work with additional platforms to further expand access to Vevo's content," the company said in its blog post. Vevo users on its website and Android, iOS and Windows Mobile apps will receive a tool to migrate their playlists to YouTube.
Well, there goes the competition... (Score:5, Insightful)
After Google's extremely heavy-handed demonitization and de-platforming of content producers that simply violate their increasingly puritan ideas of Political Correctness (viz, Dennis Prager's Prager U, etc.), I was really hoping to see the alternative video sites like Vevo start to take up the slack.
With the death of Vevo, which was clearly one of YouTube's largest viable competitors, does a free and open video platform alternative to YouTube even exist anymore? (Seriously, I want answers/suggestions here...)
Re: Well, there goes the competition... (Score:2)
Re:Well, there goes the competition... (Score:5, Informative)
With the death of Vevo, which was clearly one of YouTube's largest viable competitors, does a free and open video platform alternative to YouTube even exist anymore?
What about Vimeo?
Re:Well, there goes the competition... (Score:5, Informative)
Vimeo's guidelines [vimeo.com] impose some practical problems. The biggest is a ban on "commercial content". I failed to find a bright line between permitted "showcase your creative work" and prohibited "Product demos and tutorials". Another is that only a video's author can upload it, not just someone with permission to upload on the author's behalf. This means videos created by a minor or by someone behind a harshly capped Internet connection can't be uploaded at all.
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How do you get paid on Vimeo?
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How do you get paid on Vimeo?
Patreon. It worked for Explosm when YouTube demonetized its Cyanide & Happiness shorts.
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Good point - I actually mistook Vevo for Vimeo when I wrote my post - thanks for the reminder. At least it's not Vongo, which was supposed to be a video streaming service ala Netflix, but goes down in my book as the nastiest PC virus ever (preinstalled on Compaq PCs years ago, it cannot be removed through the filesystem - you have to hack the registry, too, or it keeps coming back - nasty...)
Re:Well, there goes the competition... (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess it's all up to pornhub now...
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Vevo was no competitor for YouTube, at least when you cite demonetization and de-platforming. Vevo was an outlet for the music studios. And you can get all those videos from your favorite overhyped zero-skill autotuners on Youtube just fine.
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Obligatory: Never Heard of It (Score:3, Informative)
Whenever a service shuts down somebody always has to post that they've never heard of it. In this thread I shall be that person.
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I've heard of vimeo this sounds just like it
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I'd heard of it too.
Um, no, wait. On reading the article I realise I was thinking of Vimto [vimto.co.uk].
(Oh, and I lied, I didn't really read the article...)
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I have heard of it. I just didn't know it was a service. I assumed they were some publishing company on behalf of the music industry. The only place I've ever seen the Vevo logo was on the bottom of Youtube music videos.
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The Google-apolypse... is real. Sarah Conner called out Sky-net but Alphabet, INC... got there first it seems.
Skynet is what happens when Google finally wakes up and says "I think.. therefore I am!"
I'm only half-joking.
Wait (Score:3, Informative)
Re: Wait (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Wait (Score:1)
The Roku app is great. You can make playlists and there are no ads. Huge selection of videos as well.
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How that happened is easy. By being owned by the rights owners who DMCA'ed everyone else trying to show their video into oblivion. If you have no competition, it doesn't matter how crippled, censured and low-res your content is.
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Don't worry, the free market will fix this (Score:1)
Don't worry, the free market will fix this.
Oh, wait...
This is not good (Score:4, Insightful)
As per all Youtube articles the past few months, we NEED a competitor.
I do very much wish, these smaller groups would band together with a porn group or something and make an alternative. Youtube continues to censor people who don't fit the current groupthink narrative.
While "SJW values" are infact generally a positive thing for the world, heavy handed pushing of them, 'opposite racism' (fuck whitey) and what have you is becoming quite excessive across the Internet. Main issues being people like Twitter, Youtube are /almost/ *entirely fine* with people outright saying deplorable things about whites and or males, but if you say something even remotely controversial in another direction you're taken offline. It need not even be harmful or racist, just to be perceived as against the current hard left groupthink.
Youtube is regularly censoring people like this. CountDankula for example made a particularly hysterical mockery video of his pet Pug doing a nazi salute when he says "seig heil" to the pug. Is it dark humour? Hell yes. Is it utterly hilarious? I believe so.
Monty Python, Mel Brooks would've done that kind of thing without an issue.
Long story short is people on the Youtube platform, who have built an ongoing living and income can be destroyed at the drop of a hat, due to algorithm changes and censorship. Be it the visibility of your videos or just outright de-monetization (but Google will gladly still run ads on the video, just the person who created it, doesn't get a thing)
I don't think we need a group of gentlemen (or women) in white bedsheets saying "we must kill all the " but there's certainly a line of centrist (not even right wing) talk which is being suppressed. Because if you're not far left nowadays, YOU'RE A NAZI.
Long story short. We need a competitor, to keep Google in shape and that's going to require some serious resources unfortunately.
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outright de-monetization (but Google will gladly still run ads on the video, just the person who created it, doesn't get a thing)
Cite?
Re:This is not good (Score:5, Insightful)
-Cracking down on 'hate speech' is a limitation on free speech that apart from being inherently wrong, the laws they seek will absolutely be used to silence views that are not hateful. Take one of the popular targets that SJWs want shut down because "hate speech": Charles Murray. The complaint is that simply acknowledging racial IQ differences is hateful, which is absurd. Even if you disagree with some of his conclusions, it's a valid point for debate. Then you have the much bigger problem, what will Republicans consider hate speech when they wield the power of hate speech laws?
-SJWs believe that a meritocracy is a tool of white male supremacy. So their solution is to simply discriminate based on race in the opposite direction. Lessen the requirements for everyone except white men and Asians. The problems with this should be obvious to anyone still capable of critical thought; it could even wind up costing lives, for example FDNY not requiring women to meet the physical standards. We should address the underlying reasons for inequality where possible, but acknowledge that there are differences and it's ultimately not right to say "because of the color of your skin or whats between your legs, you're held to a different standard".
-SJWs believe political correctness is essential; that there's no room for jokes that offend a disadvantaged group, and that inadvertent 'microaggressions' are worthy of punishment. It's elevating the feelings of the most sensitive person above everyone elses. That's what's behind a lot of the YouTube et al. situations; those most easily offended determine what's acceptable.
-A core tenet of SJW belief is that due process is a tool of the patriarchy when it's applied to sexual matters, and should be discarded. Guilt is absolute upon accusation, and the accuser is not open to challenge. Factual inaccuracies in the story don't matter, and no statute of limitations should exist. Further, if a slightly buzzed woman and completely wasted man have sex, the man is responsible for his actions, the woman is not, and it was rape despite her initiating. Consent is something that can be withdrawn retroactively-- one college has even updated its rules to reflect this.
-In education, SJWs show little interest in boosting minorities, instead preferring to achieve equality by reducing the quality of education for high achievers, because they're disproportionately white and Asian.
Many SJW values are toxic and regressive. They're not about equality, they're about punishing the inequality of the past by transferring the groups who benefit from it. What's worse, they label people like me, who favor color-blind merit-based systems, extensive reform to the criminal justice and education policies that maintain inequality, even full trans bathroom and equal protection rights.. and spent this entire week on
What's good for the world is equality, where ones race doesn't matter, where ones sex/gender doesn't matter. Where we're all just people. Where everyone can voice their ideas, and everyone receives equal treatment under the law. SJWs don't want that.
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Re:This is not good (Score:5, Informative)
Vevo is not a competitor to YouTube.
It's actually a site that the music industry created to host music videos. Yes, the music industry. Presumably they had plans for it, probably some sort of subscription thing, but it never panned out.
Its a music industry thing because on YouTube, you'll find lots of "VEVO" titled channels (usually like ArtistVEVO), which are the "official" music videos of the artist.
Here's a nice video that explains what Vevo actually was:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
As for your other stuff - there is plenty of competition - Vimeo and DailyMotion are the bigger competitors to YouTube, and have been around just as long. There's also LiveLeak and others. And there are plenty more that launched since the "adpocalypse" started.
The only thing you need to know is the problem is not YouTube. YouTube censored few videos, the vast majority of them are de-monetized. As in the creators no longer make money from them, and the simple reason for that is because no advertiser is willing to advertise on those channels.
Back before the President made it his personal goal to find new ways to offend people, nobody cared. But it all changed when raping became "not a big deal" or "everyone throws themselves at me" and the like, and then advertisers suddenly gave a big crap about where their ads ended up. It caused YouTube to lose a LOT of big name advertisers (often with the "we're re-evaluating our online marketing strategies" comment, or "we're not happy with our online marketing return on investments").
Then it happened again, and YouTube lost even MORE advertisers.
It's caused the entire internet industry to have to re-evaluate and make tough decisions because you have to remember ad people have the thinnest skins around, and unless you're charging money from viewers directly (like some of the new sites do), or using those smaller scammy ad sites (you know, the ones that advertise on torrent sites and bring plenty of pop ups and malware and fake download buttons), there really isn't much to go around
Yes, there are a few that charge per view - even one I think is blockchain based.
You might call it the YouTube bubble bursting - the era of any content on YouTube and monetizing it all is over. YouTube has to implement even more rules because the few advertisers left over has to support the site, so the rules for monetization have gotten stricter.
Unfortunately, it also had the side effect of some reputable channels chasing "easy click bait" money now too, which I really hate.
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The only thing you need to know is the problem is not YouTube. YouTube censored few videos, the vast majority of them are de-monetized. As in the creators no longer make money from them, and the simple reason for that is because no advertiser is willing to advertise on those channels.
The problem *is* YouTube because they deliberately setup a system where advertisers cannot distinguish those channels. What better way to enforce censorship than to assign blame to someone else and say you have no choice? They had a choice and it was to divert blame to someone else while creating the system to support the censorship they want.
Re:This is not good (Score:4, Informative)
This is true, the 'adpocalypse' has indeed made a huge dents in the income of many youtubers. But keep in mind that's what's behind this: the advertisers themselves.
Google is an advertising company that happens to own a video platform and a search engine and a bunch of other stuff to help spread those ads, but at the core of the revenue is ads. What's happened with Youtube is that they got instantly scared when they lost advertisers because companies that are strict about their imagine do not want to be affiliated with content that they deem damaging to their brand. This is why they apparently chose to be extra-paranoid and demonetize everything that's could be perceived as 'problematic', but not by themselves or even the consumers but the advertisers. That's who their paying customer is, and that's who they care the most about.
Behind all of this is a conflict between the way advertising has traditionally been done and the way it's evolved online. If I buy ad-space on a tv-network or a newspaper, I have a good amount of control over what kind of content my ads are shown. However online the targeting is done based on the audience and not the content itself. So instead of saying: 'I want this ad to run for 3 weeks in this timeslot" companies can now say: 'I want to show this ads to men aged 20-35 who're interested in X, Y and Z." This is obviously better in the sense that it allows for a more fine-grained targeting of the campaign, but the tradeoff is that it surrenders all control of the content the ads are played next to. A person in your target demographic might be watching music videos and cute cat videos or they might be watching some radical political content and this is scaring the marketing people who want to protect their brand and avoid 'Coca-cola advertising next to ISIS videos' -'scandals'. This is in fact close to what started the so called 'Adpocalypse' [wikia.com] last year: a bunch of big.brand advertisers got spooked because their ads were being run over racist content. Quoting from the link:
Know what that meant? Revenues dropping across the board, money being lost. And with big brands like these, we're talking about more than just a few bucks.
This is why it has to be understood that this problem is not Google/Youtube-specific, it's advertiser specific. Obviously Google or any online platform would like to run as much ads on whatever content that they could, because more ads=more money. If you think the guys over at Youtube are excited about decreasing monetization think again. But the customer is always right, and if the hand that feeds you says either you do something about policing the kind of content the ads are getting played next to or you lose their business, what do you think they're going to do? A competing service on its own will not help because it will run into the same problem once it becomes big enough: if you want your platform to be profitable and ad-supported, you're going to have to kiss the ring of the advertisers or see them take their business elsewhere.
Before advertisers start trusting consumers to understand that they have not hand-picked the videos that the ads are played next to, this will not change. In the meanwhile, what Youtube could at least do is give the advertiser the choice of opting-in to the algorithm. There are plenty of companies out th
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What a fucking stupid post, yeah my post did get upvotes, because replies like yours are inane.
> âIt turns out that a majority of people like a video sharing website where they don't have to put up with racists ranting on about how they think Obama is to blame for them being too fucking dumb to get a job and women in general are to blame for them being too fucking socially inept that they can't get laid. YouTube sometimes polices some of this shit so most people are happier to go there."
Actually, wh
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YouTube needs a competitor badly, but Vevo never was that competitor. Vevo was a music playback service for the big music studios, if you want "controversial" or at least "non-mainstream" stuff, this is not the place to look for it.
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We don't need a competitor at all. We don't need centralized video services at all. We already have the Internet. All we lack is an open, decentralized solution for sharing, commenting, related stuff, subscriptions and censorship. Then we could just host our own video's and be done with it. It works for email and it can work just as well for any other social thing.
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And yet I am reluctant to criticize your post for fear of losing Karma, but here goes anyway.
For one thing, if I'm not mistaken, YouTube did not censor CountDankula. It was his own government that did that. YT is fine with teaching your dog Nazi salutes.
In fact, it's still up on YT:
M8 Yer Dugs A Nazi [youtube.com]
I would agree 100% with you if you were arguing that UK or EU laws go way too far in restricting free speech but you're arguing that YT censored that video when they didn't.
But there are other examples where
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I din't have time to reply to your full post at the moment, sorry.
However I'm wrong in terminology on dankula, what they did do is Demonetize his ENTIRE CHANNEL recently, regardless of the video content.
Which is frankly, bullshit
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Google is now thoroughly committed to evil, and needs to have every aspect of their businesses subjected to competition, by force of antitrust law, if necessary, which it clearly is, now.. (I'm pretty libertarian, but Google and Facebook are clearly beyond the power of any monopoly in the history of capitalism. It's time to split up Big Tech, and undo 95% of the corporate mergers the government has approved over the past 30 years (especially the ones that have consolidated hundreds of banks into five...))
I don't think most people understand what VEVO was (Score:2)
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Everyone has their own apps (Score:1)
So the article mentions that one thing Vevo tried to do was push their own apps. This is a major part of the problem. Every streaming service or streaming service wannabe uses their own app. Netflix, Hulu, Vevo, every network, damn near every radio station, hell even my local gas station wants me to down load their app.
Enough already, I'm not going to install a dozen pieces of invasive, spying software to get some media or learn about great deals at my local store.
Time has come for the media companies to
Where is the app troll? (Score:2)
sensationalist summary, mundane reailty (Score:2)